A Sort of Love

A Sort of Love

There is a sort of love
With an interweaving of souls so strong
That it is unbreakable and knows no end
With roots running so deep
That it can reach beyond the valleys of death
And can find a way through the abyss of any sorrow
Whose branches reach so high
It can cuddle among the farthest stars at night
And touch the midday sun shining bright at noon

It can fly among all the clouds of Mother Earth
And can dance with every raindrop
Bringing supple, life giving water
To every creature and all plants
That grow in rich, brown soil

There is a sort of love
That creates a tender embrace between hearts
Reaching beyond the never ending eons
To wander together and wonder and rest
Far past the ends of time

Dewey Dirks

Path to a Spectacular Life

Path to a Spectacular Life

If you want to live a spectacular life
Then live each day as well as you can
To the best of your ability at the time
And pretty soon ten years will have passed
Full of good days

As each day passes
Make sure to stop and notice
All that is beautiful
In what is going on around you
Although sometimes is hard to see,
Mother Nature weaves much that is kind
Compassionate and caring into all life
Every single day

If you have a dream in life
Then break it down into many small parts
And each day work at it for a little while
Virtually anything can be accomplished
If you work at it in many small pieces
A little bit at a time

Make sure to talk every day
To someone in your life
About whom you care very much
Even if the only one you can find to talk to
Is Mother Nature herself
Or someone you love who has passed on

Dewey Dirks

Granular

Granular

Human perception is granular
Made up of lots of bits and pieces
That we happen to notice
Of the world around us
It never is really a complete picture
Of all that is possible to take in

Our worldviews are composites
Made of ideas and notions and expectations
Like the picture on your computer screen
Is made of many thousands of tiny dots of color
And the resolution of what we each perceive
Is made better when we increase the number
Of worldviews that we draw upon
Don’t rely on the views
Of just one culture, religion,
Scientific discipline, or philosophy
All the better to paint
Your picture of the world
With as large a palette as you can muster

Dewey Dirks

The Ways We Have Fun

The Ways We Have Fun

Many times we think
Of the things we learn in life
In terms of what we are taught
By the strife, struggling and hard times
We each face in life
And many of us think it is only the difficult times
That have anything to teach us
But the lessons all of us can learn
From the ways we each entertain ourselves
Are just as valuable and important

The ways we have fun in life
Point the way to knowing
What we find truly valuable and fulfilling
The ways we have fun in life
Teach us each of laughter,
Of happiness and how to relax
The enjoyment we get in our pleasure time
Show us the way down the path
Of letting ourselves be who we really are

Much of our daily banter and blustering
Is about a supposed maturity
That we imagine to be very adult and serious
When the only real maturity to be found
Is in the journey back
To the sort of acceptance and love
That you knew how to have
When you were four years old
In the end, all any of us hope,
All any of use are,
And that all we aspire to be
Are the children of infinity

Dewey Dirks

Validation

Validation

My cat, Mau Mau, sits at the open door of my home
Thinking cat thoughts, wondering cat sorts of things
As he watches the evening sky
Turn from blue to gray to black
He breathes cat breaths and his heart
Beats with a cat heartbeat

The rhythms his cat thoughts,
Cat breaths and cat heartbeat make
Are their own reason for existing,
And he is comfortable with no more validation for living
Than the life spark coursing through his veins

It is good, I think, every so often,
To strip away from ourselves
All the heavy trappings of our culture,
All the striving, and talking about
What’s gonna be on the TV next week,
And worrying about paying the bills,
Down to the sorts of rhythms our human
Heartbeats and breaths make,
And feel once again for ourselves
That same sort of validation for being alive
That needs no more reason
Than the simple fact that we exist

Dewey Dirks

Views

Views

This morning I sat for a long time
looking at the scenery outside my home
There were tall green trees and leafy bushes,
tan rooftops, red ochre walls,
and a playground with blue and yellow slides.
As I looked out my open sliding-glass door,
I noticed that the shades of colors were different
depending on whether I was looking through
the glass window, or through the wire screen
that covered the other half of the door.

Through the glass, colors were of a deeper shade
while the colors through the screen
were a little more pastel as the wire mesh
diffused the morning sunlight shining bright outside.

Same scene, different views,
through different perspectives and I knew that
if I opened the door, and stepped outside,
I would see all the morning colors from
yet a third perspective as well.

Everything you ever look at in life is just like that—
You’ll get different views of the very same things
depending upon the filter of expectations,
assumptions, preconceptions and ideas
you happen to be looking through.

It is good to learn to stand back
from one singular perspective and view
whatever you’re looking at through
several different filters in order
to get a more well rounded view
of what your looking at.

Become a collector of ever more points of view.
You’ll find soon enough that no single point of view
has a corner on the market of truth
and you’ll discover in yourself
greater empathy for ever more people.

Dewey Dirks

Pictures

Pictures

I have a number of friends whom
Have reached deeply enough into themselves
To have touched something of the great starfield
That lives deep in our souls
Although I’m sure that some of them
Have not yet realized that is what they’ve done
Many of them have good amounts of insight
Into Nature and Human nature
And it is always a pleasure to talk with them
About the paths we all wander in life

Two of my friends who see with much clarity
Have a couple of traits in common
Although I don’t believe they’ve ever met one another
Both are American, born and raised in the American ways
Of the seventies and eighties
One of them has studied the martial arts for many years
While the other has studied yoga for a very long time
Their minds are both lithe with the thoughts of two cultures,
Their ideas swim in the oceans of two societies traditions
And this trait, I think, allows them
To both see from better vistas of view

Although it is possible to see with good clarity while depending
On the ideas of just a single culture
And knowing the thoughts of more than one society
Does not guarantee clarity of view,
As a general rule, it is easier to see life more clearly
When you can draw upon the great variety
Of human thought rather than depending solely upon
The notions of just one society
The more you teach yourself of the grand palette of colors
Humans have created for themselves
To depict the paths we each wander in life,
The more it tends to allow you to paint
A clearer picture of the world for yourself

Dewey Dirks

Many Sided

Many Sided

The truth is not always beautiful
Nor is it always cold or hard to accept
Very many of the things
That people argue over
Are actually many-sided truths
Whose distinguishing characteristic
Is that opposing ideas
Can both carry equal portions of truth
Like a gem that shines one color
When you hold it a certain way
And a different color
When you turn it another

Failure to recognize that truths
Are very often multi-sided is the source
Of much of the discontent in the world
And the reason why a very wise man once said,
‘Say not “I have found the truth,”
But rather, “I have found a truth”
Say not “I have found the path of the soul”
Say rather, “I have met the soul
Walking on my path”’

Dewey Dirks

Win-Win

Win-Win

Someone famous once said
‘There are those
Who want to abuse you,
Those who want to be abused,
Those who want to use you
And those who want to be used’
But they forgot to mention
Those who want to share
And to be shared

Whomever seeks to create
Win-win relationships
With those that they journey beside
Will find themselves
Among the unspoken legislators
Of human discourse upon Mother Earth
Symbionts are the hidden tillermen of Mankind

Dewey Dirks

Manifest

Manifesting

If you intend to manifest anything at all
You need to remember four things;
That you are breathing,
That the place
In which you dwell is very big,
That there are many others here with you,
And that all things are one thing
And ten-thousand things
At the very same time

You also need to remember
That your conscious mind
Knows what you really want to happen
Only about half of the time
But your spirit always knows
What you really want and need all of the time
And your spirit is the only thing about you
That is powerful enough
To manifest anything at all

You also need to remember
That while all you need
Is already inside of you
And you need to look no further than
What dwells within,
Manifesting anything is always
An interaction between you and the Universe
And always represents an agreement
Between you and Life itself
The Universe is all around you
And all inside of you at the same time

Manifesting is much more
Than just wishing very hard,
It is you reaching deep inside yourself
To touch your soul
And your soul reaching out
To touch all Life

What happens to you, my friend,
All that you encounter,
All that you see and all that you do
Are dances you dance
With Life itself

Dewey Dirks

Strange

Strange

Imagine for a minute
How strangely
Arranged the world
We live in might be—
Well, you can be certain
That no matter what
You happen to imagine,
It’s arranged stranger than that

Everything that lives has a soul—
Tiny bits of the divine
Distributed in equal measure
Among many trillions of living beings
When comes the day
You happen into your own soul
You’ll likely think you’ve found God

We all live in a giant sea of life
On a tiny blue dot up in the sky
Life here extends fifty thousand feet
Up into the air
And about eight thousand feet
Down into the ground
Look around my friend, you live
About eight thousand feet
Up from the bottom
In a grand ocean of souls
And most of us live our entire lives
Without ever knowing it

Pretty much everything
In the Universe is connected
To everything else
In a vast, vast, intricately woven
Sea of connections
And those goofy little ditties
Of creativity that we call intelligence
Are just the ability
Of our minds
To notice and utilize
The tiny, tiny fraction
Of all those connections
That we are adapted and able
To find relevant
And the links of causation
We’ve built our sciences
And logic around?
Those are just special cases
Of inference that we’re adapted
To perceive and use

Life is art in motion
An artist is one who is able
To find tiny pieces of what’s enchanted
And put them to paper,
Canvas or string
Though often it remains hidden
By the illusion of our waking dreams
In our Universe, love, humor,
Grace and beauty prevail
And deep in our souls
We each already know it

Dewey Dirks

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Saving Yourself

Saving Yourself

There is only one person
who can save you
and that is yourself.
The only things you need
to save yourself from
are your own
fear and prejudice.

You overcome your
fears and prejudice
by learning to
care for yourself
as Mother Earth
cares for you.
When you learn
to have compassion
for your own shortcomings,
you also learn to have
compassion for the shortcomings
in everyone else
and all the world as well.
As your fears and prejudice
begin to subside
you’ll become ever more aware
of many things that
you’ve been doing right all this time
and many things
that life has been doing for years
to help you along.

A lack of compassion for others
is a sure indication
of a lack of compassion
for yourself.
If you want to do your part
to save the world
you need only to set yourself right
after that everything
will fall into place.
Lighting the bright flames
of love and compassion in yourself
goes far in lighting
the flames of compassion
in all whom
you come into contact with.

In the fullness of time, you’ll find
the world doesn’t need saving
so much as it needs
to be loved.
Likewise, you’ll come to find
that you don’t need saving either.
What you need is to love
and to be loved.

Dewey Dirks

Find

Find

Why spend your time
Trying to figure out
Something so grand as God
When you’re not even sure
What life it is that flows
In your own veins.
You’ll likely spend many lifetimes
Just discovering yourself

If you want to find yourself
Look to Nature
Because in it are pieces of you
If you want to find Nature
Look inside because there are
Pieces of it in you
Remember, any inquiry
Is a good one
So long as your quest is sincere

Dewey Dirks

Dreams

Dreams

If you have a dream in life
If you strive for success in what you do
Sometimes the biggest obstacle
to achieving what you want to is you

Sometimes you fear that you’re not good enough
to ever be successful
Sometimes you fear success
will tear you away from your loved ones
Sometimes you fear you’re too messed up
to be ever be successful
Sometimes you fear if you find success
everyone will be out to get you

Remember success is not about
writing a perfect book
painting a perfect painting
singing a perfect song
or making a lot of money
What success is really about
is taking your life by the hand
and walking into a bright new day
Where what you believe in
is you

Dewey Dirks

Airs

Airs

I think everyone has an air about them
A feeling that they give away to others
Like ripples expanding out from a pebble
Dropped into a pond

My wife felt like the strings on a guitar
Tightly strung and full of energy
Able to make the most beautiful
Music for your soul
She had great power all scrunched up
In her tiny frame,
Like the massive energy of a brilliant, bright sun
All packed into tiny hydrogen atoms

You are like a summer afternoon for two
Out on a quiet beach—
Hills with yellow flowers
And green grass off to the north
Leading down to a white blanket of sand
As the ocean blue rolls in with the great rhythm of life
When you laugh and smile it’s like a school of dolphins
Coming up near the shore to jump and play in the water
Blowing bubble-rings for each other.
You have great power too—
I don’t know from where it comes
But it is like a soft breeze out there on the beach
Able to sway time itself with a secret, whispering song

Dewey Dirks

Give it a Whirl

Give it a Whirl

Now, I don’t know
If I can change the world
But I’ll tell you this—
I’m gonna give it a whirl

My friends, forget about
Whether you might or might not
Make a difference
Just do what’s right,
Do the best you can,
Be yourself,
Be the best one of you that you can
And the rest will take care of itself
On your long journeys,
If you happen to help
Just one other,
That is enough

Am I gonna change the world?
I don’t know,
But I’m giving it a whirl

Dewey Dirks

Turning Your Way

Turning Your Way

If you stop for a while
All the striving and fixing
And scamming
And trying so hard
To get life to turn your way
And just look and listen
And touch what is around you
With your heart and soul
You will find
Life turning your way
And if you look into the past
Touching what is there
With your heart and soul
You will find
Life has long been
Turning your way

Dewey Dirks

Natural

Natural

Not knowing
what the future
might bring,
the cultures of Man
move naturally together
towards an unknown tomorrow
in an unspoken dance.
Our sounds are the same
as the sound of rain
in stormy darkness
pattering a natural song
all the night long.

Our market economies
and the governments
that support them
one day will outlive
their usefulness
—perhaps sooner than you think,
and fall by the wayside
going the way of
the feudal societies
that once ruled men.
Soon enough we all will stride
to the tune of a new day.

Rest easy friend,
our halting dances,
follow the Earth music
as all others do
on our blue and white sky marble
and the paths that
we men tumble and tussle along
trace the grand song of life
just as flocks of swallows
turn and twist in unison
on their long path south
flying to melodies
that have never been
set to paper.

Dewey Dirks

Benefit of a Doubt

Benefit of a Doubt

Don’t despair others their beliefs.
Everyone you ever meet
knows a thing or two
that is as wise
as the Earth Mother is old
just as everyone you ever meet
believes a few things
that are as screwy as a bent corkscrew.
To greet every day loaded for bear,
look for pieces of yourself in others
and pieces of them in yourself.
Meet all in life with the benefit of a doubt
and as much kindness as you can muster.

Dewey Dirks

Mystic

Mystic

Normally we all believe
it is us who experience life,
and we each build
well lived lives
by accumulating scores
of memorable moments.
So, when you experience life
in some special way, you say,
“For me, it’s been
a memorable moment.”

But every once in great awhile,
you have an experience
where it seems that Nature herself
takes time out of her busy, busy day
to pay attention just to you.
When life experiences you in this way
it becomes something mystical.

When comes the day you realize
Nature is always
experiencing you in this way
just as you are experiencing her.
When comes the day
you find that both you and the world
are forever as young lovers,
meeting in a vast, vast sea
of happenstance and coincidence,
falling in love just now,
discovering each other,
over and over again, every day,
then you’re a mystic.

Dewey Dirks